Track mounted lamp



Nov. 20, 1962 w. A. HILLENBRAND ETAL 5 TRACK MOUNTED LAMP Filed July 25, 1958 nitd States Efitiifii Patented Nov. 20, 1962 359651334 TRAKMO UNTED LAMP William A. Hilienhrand and Francis J. Burst, Batesviile, ind, assignors to Hiil-Rern Company, Inc Batcsviile, Ind, a corporation of Indiana Filed July 25, 1953, Ser. No. 751,030 1 Claim. (Cl. 2404) The instant invention is disclosed in relation to hospital furniture because the lighting problems in this field are particularly acute. However, it will be readily appreciated that use of the invention is also contemplated in other environments.

Limited space in hospitals has long supplied problems in the designing of hospital furniture and equipment. Facilities presently employed for lighting a patients bed or night stand generally comprise either a bed lamp aflixed to the bed itself or a tall floor lamp that may be positioned near the bed.

It would admittedly be an advantage to have a table lamp mounted upon the night cabinet, but a light so mounted would have to be mounted in themiddle of the back edge of the cabinet so that it would supply the best light to the patient no matter which side of the bed the cabinet was placed upon. It will be appreciated that in many instances space limitations might require the night cabinet to be on one side or the other of the bed; and additionally, its placement upon the right or left Side of the patient will depend upon how the patient is injured or whether the patient is right or left handed.

It can readily be appreciated that the use of a floor lamp and a cabinet requires the shifting of two pieces of furniture, and there is additional dificulty in placing the lamp so that it provides good light for the writing leaf the patient may be using. Also, it has been found that the lighting fixture on the bed is inadequate because not only is it fairly far removed from the patients writing or reading surface, but also its position forces the patient to look through the shadow of his own head and shoulders as he reads or writes. Of course, the light mounted on the head of the bed is of little use to attending medical personnel.

The instant invention provides a solution to the hospital bed lighting problem by introducing a lamp that is roller mounted on a track located at the rear of a night cabinet so that the lamp may be moved to either side of the cabinet depending upon which side of the bed the cabinet is placed upon. Another object of this invention is to provide a traveling guard which not only protects the track mounting of the cabinet from becoming jammed against the wall, but also protects the wall itself from becoming marred from contact with the lamp mounting. This traveling ground is an important feature because the heads of hospital beds are always placed against a wall and consequently the cabinets servicing these beds will also be placed in proximity to a wall.

A further object of this invention is to provide a roller mounted lamp stand having a lamp which can be regulated as to both the direction and intensity of light, and which serves the needs of attending medical personnel as well as those of the patient.

Another object of this invention is to provide a roller mounted lamp stand in which the mounting unit itself is out of sight so that it not only presents an attractive unit but also prevents the roller mounting from becoming fouled from contact with articles on the cabinet. The location of the mounting results in a safety factor as it is impossible for the hands and fingers of the user to be caught in the roller track.

Additionally, it is the purpose of this invention to provide a roller mounted lamp stand utilizing a wheel lid 'and bushing combination and an elongated track, thereby not requiring any kind of maintenance such as oiling, tightening, etc.

A further advantage in the'instant invention resides in the fact that the track mounting is easily transferable from one cabinet to another, thereby making it possible to transfer the lamp stand and its track mounting from one piece of equipment to another. Since the track for the mounting is positioned on the rear of the cabinet concerned, the small screw holes left when it is removed will not in any way disfigure the cabinet when the track is removed.

Another advantage of this invention is to provide a roller mounted lamp stand which is separable from its track mounting so that the lamp and stand may be moved from one track mounting to another. That is to say, this invention contemplates the installation of roller tracks on a plurality of cabinets for subsequent use with a lesser number of lamp stands by switching the lamps from one track to another. This method is valuable for use in instances where the cabinets involved are permanently located and can not be moved from place to place.

For the attainment of these and such other objects as may appear or be pointed out, I have shown an embodiment of my invention in the accompanying drawing, wherein:

FIGURE 1 is an elevational view of the device shown mounted on the rear face of a cabinet.

FIGURE 2 is a cross sectional view taken along line 2--2 of FIGURE 1.

FIGURE 3 is a partially diagrammatic front elevational view of the bearing carriage and the roller guard.

FIGURE 4 is a cross sectional view taken along line 44 of FIGURE 3.

FIGURE 5 is a cross sectional view taken along line 55 of FIGURE 3.

A preferred embodiment of the invention is disclosed in FIGURE 1 wherein a lamp stand 1 is shown mounted on a wheeled carriage and trackway assembly 2 which is mounted on a horizontal track 3. It will be noted that the horizontal track 3 is mounted on the upper rear face of a cabinet 7 and extends virtually all the way across the rear of the cabinet 7 so that the lamp stand 1 may be moved to any position along the back edge of the cabinet.

A roller guard 4 is shown rotatably mounted upon the lower portion of lamp stand 1.

Lamp stand I is hollow so as to accommodate an electric cord 5 which passes through the lower end thereof, and is equipped with a switch box 6 and a lamp shade 8. Lamp shade 8 is rotatably mounted to the top portion of lamp stand I by an appropriate pivot means It). The switch box 6 is equipped with an on-oif switch and may be additionally provided with an electrical outlet for the use of electrically operated appliances such as a radio, razor, etc. Neither the on-off switch nor the electrical outlet are shown in the drawing.

The lower portion of lamp stand 1 is provided with screw threads 11. These screw threads accommodate upper and lower nuts 12 and 13 between which is held rubber roller guard 4.

As disclosed in FIGURE 5,

roller guard 4 is recessed centrally thereof and is provided with a cylindrical bearing sleeve 9 which is slightly longer than the width of the recessed portion of roller guard 4 so that when lower nut 13 is tightened upwardly it abuts the lower edge of sleeve 9 causing the upper edge of sleeve 9 to abut the inner face of upper nut 12 thereby keeping the inside faces of the two nuts from frictionally engagmg the opposite outer sides of roller guard 4, thus allowing the roller guard to turn freely around the spacing cylinder.

A front elevational view of a wheeled carriage 14 is shown in FIGURE 3. Lamp stand 1 is mounted upon the carriage 14 by an appropriate means such as welding. The carriage 14 is comprised of a bearing plate 15 and a plurality of wheels or rollers 16. The preferred embodiment of the invention utilizes four wheels, one being mounted adjacent each corner of the rectangular hearing plate 15. As disclosed in FIGURE 4, wheels re are mounted on stub shafts 17 which in turn are mounted through bearing plate 15. In the preferred embodiment, stub shaft 17 is simply a rivet. Bushings 18, engaging the inner races of the wheels, space the wheels 16 from the bearing plate, thus allowing them to rotate freely on stub shafts 17.

As is disclosed in FIGURE 1, it may be seen that track 3 is supplied with a plurality of apertures through which screws 20 may be inserted so as to mount the track on the back of a cabinet 7. The track 3 is cornposed of two identically formed pieces of sheet steel. Each of these pieces is formed into three planer surfaces, namely, mounting leg 21 and the right angle faces of angle track 22. As can be seen in FIGURE 2, the upper and lower angle tracks 22 form a trackway in which wheels 16 ride. It will be noted also that while lower wheels 16 support the weight of the lamp, lamp stand and Wheeled carriage, the upper wheels 16 offer resistance to the force tending to cause the aforementioned parts to move backward, away from the cabinet. In other words, the lower wheels act as support or friction bearings and the upper wheels act as thrust bearings.

Track mounting 3 is comprised of two identically formed pieces of sheet steel. These two pieces are joined together by an appropriate means such as spot welding along their mounting leg faces 21 in the manner as shown in FIGURE 2. Reference to this figure also discloses that each of the mounting screws 20 is positioned so as to pass through both of the mounting legs 21 so as to add extra stability to the 'joinder of the two pieces forming track 3.

Rubber stops 25 are positioned in opposite ends of the upper angle track to arrest the movement of carriage 14 so that it does not slip out of track 3. The rubber stops 25 are removably mounted by a nut and screw means so that one of them may be removed for the insertion of the wheels into the angle track portions of track 3 and then replaced in order that the movement of the carriage will be restricted to the length of track 3. In the preferred embodiment of the invention, only one pair of rubber stops 25, at the opposite ends of upper angle track 22, is disclosed; however, an additional pair may be provided at the opposite ends of lower angle track 22 if desired.

Although the preferred embodiment discloses track mounting 3 as being formed from two identically formed portions that have been subsequently joined together, it will be readily appreciated that track mounting 3 could be initially shaped from a single unit. One of the advantages of the specific structure disclosed is that it simplifies the manufacturing process and provides the requisite accuracy in quantity production.

The instant invention also contemplates the use of any track mounted, slidably operated lamp stand.

With reference to FIGURE 2, it will be noted that angle tracks 22 receive upper and lower wheels 16 in a novel manner. The substantially V-shaped tracks 22 are mounted so that the inside portions of the V receive upper and lower wheels 16. It is to be noted that only opposite side edges at single points on the circular edges of wheels 16 make contact with the inside faces 23 and 24 of angle tracks 22.. This design allows for a minimum friction situation as there is an absolute minimum of contact between the wheels 16 and angle tracks 22.

It will also be noted with reference to FIGURE 2 that the V-shaped track arrangement causes the lower wheels to act as friction or support bearings and the upper ones to act as thrust bearings. The support bearing relationship between the lower angle track and the lower wheels is obvious, and it will be seen that the thrust bearing relationship between upper wheels 16 and upper angle track 22 is caused by the fact that upper angle track face 23 resists the turning moment of the lamp and carriage. In other words, the lamp, lamp stand and carriage have a tendency to fall backward from the furniture upon which they are mounted and the upper angle track 23 resists this moment by its contact with upper wheels 16, thereby causing these upper wheels or rollers to act as thrust bearings.

Having described our invention, we claim:

Apparatus comprising, a piece of mobile hospital furniture having a back wall, a pair of vertically spaced horizontal V-shaped trackways fixed to said back wall one above the other in generally parallel relationship to project outwardly therefrom, the openings of said V- shaped trackways facing each other, a lamp assembly, a wheeled carriage fixed to said lamp assembly, horizontally spaced wheels rotatably mounted on said carriage and disposed in said facing trackways, said wheels having rim edges providing point contacts of said wheels with said trackways to space said lamp assembly outwardly from said furniture and to provide substantially friction free cantilever rolling support for said lamp assembly for location at any desired point along the length of said trackways and a bumper roller mounted on said assembly for rotation about a vertical axis, the outer extremity of said roller extending outwardly beyond said carriage to provide a substantially friction free engagement of said apparatus with a wall or like surface.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 540,442 I-Iinkle June 4, 1895 1,825,468 Miller Sept. 29, 1931 1,953,451 Watkins Apr. 3, 1934 2,090,409 Vaszin Aug. 17, 1937 2,201,227 Casey May 21, 1940 2,290,001 Sherman July 14, 1942 2,561,163 Wolters July 17, 1951 2,562,979 Yin gling Aug. 7, 1951 

